Schedule

There was a three-way tie for 5th, so instead of scheduling the next 6 months, I scheduled 7. Bonus month!

@CannibalisticApple will be hosting her nomination, The Last Express, for our first month. If you're interested in hosting a month, see the Hosting section below.

Also, I selfishly scheduled PlayStation WHAT? during the Backlog Burner so I can use those games in my Bingo Card. :D

For the rest, I tried to create variety in the schedule so that we weren't playing the same systems or genres back-to-back.

Discussion Topics

Each month will have two discussion topics:

• "Insert Cartridge" - 1st of the month
• "Remove Cartridge" - 20th of the month

Insert Cartridge topics are primarily for getting the game set up and running. Remove Cartridge topics are primarily for reflecting on the game once you've played it. However, the game itself and anything else related to it can be discussed in either one.

Hosting

Each month, the discussion topics will be posted by a different "host" who will act as the emcee for that month.

Hosting is not required, but it is encouraged that people host months for games that they are either already very familiar with or that they are strongly interested in playing.

People who nominated a game will be given preference for hosting, otherwise it will be given to whomever claims it first.

If you would like to host a month, let me know which one and I will add you to the schedule.

Before your month begins, I will send you a "Hosting Package" featuring templates that you can edit to your liking.

If no one claims a month, I will host it as a fallback.

Voting Results

The top 6 games from the voting round were chosen to be played.

Of the remaining games:

• The top 50% will advance to the next round. They will start the next round with a base score of 70% of their vote totals.
• The bottom 50% will be removed from the list.

Removed games will be able to be re-nominated in future rounds if someone chooses to do so.

I need you to do me a favor: please keep an open mind and reserve judgement until after you've thoroughly digested the ideas I'm presenting here. These are not my ideas, and I have no connection to this project. I hope to do them justice in representing them accurately and as clearly as I understand it all.

Please don't be dismissive. Please don't jump to conclusions. I would not be posting about this if I did not believe it has tremendous potential to reshape the digital economy, and therefore everything that governs how civilization progresses in the next century. Dramatic, much? Yes, but I hope I have your attention.

I'm not posting this as a plain link, because the website looks incredibly sus. Just trust me for a few minutes. Links are at the end.

(No generative AI was used to write this post.)

What is PrizeForge?

PrizeForge is a financial service that can be best thought of as "Representative Crowdfunding" (my term, not theirs). Like direct crowdfunding (e.g. Kickstarter), it lets people pool their money to support expensive projects that would otherwise be impossible to fund. Similar to Patreon, it can also be an effective tip jar for much smaller things that would otherwise go unrewarded.

The innovation is two-fold: first, contributors never move alone. As a contributor, you set a ceiling on your weekly payment. This is the "enrollment" amount. However, the actual amount of money disbursed each weekly cycle is the amount that is successfully "matched" with other contributors. In the simplest example, if I wanted to enroll for Tildes at $20/week, and one other user enrolled at $5/week, the disbursement would be the sum of the matched funds: $5 + $5. In this way, nobody ever pays an unfair proportion of the total, and small donations become an integral part of funding allocation. Additionally, like how philanthrophists often match charitable donations to meet a fundraising objective, matching provides a powerful incentive for individuals to contribute by making individual contributions feel more significant, since any money you part with can be doubled by another contributor. The more you put in, the more others will too. (PrizeForge calls this algorithm "Elastic Fund Matching". The full algorithm gets considerably more complex, but they have a neat visualization on their site and videos.)

Second, unlike existing crowdfunding and patronage systems, creators and companies do not receive fund disbursements directly. Rather, representatives ("Delegates") send the money to the people and organizations that should receive funds to deliver value to the stream's contributors.

"Won't delegates just siphon funds to themselves?" you ask. Well, yes, that will 100% happen at some point. Corruption is a human problem that can't be solved with technology alone. PrizeForge aims to provide mechanisms to allow the community to be very dynamic, so contributors can easily switch to a new representative—for any reason. Additionally, tools for transparency in how the money moves would go a long way in keeping delegates accountable.

In the context of open-source software, delegates should be experienced power users who are well equipped to evaluate features and bugfixes, and then can award the prizes to developers according to their best judgement.

The use of a representative has many advantages over direct crowdfunding. Someone highly invested in a software product has valuable experience and would be more effective at setting priorities for features and bugfixes. An experienced and trusted delegate would save developers time having to parse the requests (...demands?) of individual users who may not be able to articulate what they really want. Also, if a developer or company stops doing what people want (providing value to the people who care), then funds can flow to competing alternatives in a very granular and dynamic way, as the delegates shift funding and/or new delegates arise.

If we could pick a delegate here for Tildes, would anybody really object to @cfabbro?

These trusted delegates already exist, everywhere! We just haven't been able to cooperate in the right ways to delegate our individual power, so they can truly move the needle on funding the projects we care about. PrizeForge is, I believe, the first truly sustainable funding model for community-owned and directed open-source.

Addendum

Watch this video first! Before you get scared away by the terrible scammy-looking website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SO46oEdlkY8

The FAQ: https://prizeforge.com/faq

The company's github page: https://github.com/positron-solutions

Looks like just two people, with Psionikus doing all the promotion and running accounts. The company is incorporated in South Korea. They've got a bunch of emacs tooling, and I believe the PrizeForge concept originated out of a desire to improve the funding/development process of emacs, then the lem editor. They also apparently have a bit of beef with the FSF due to emacs politcs. Check out the last FAQ for a fun easter egg.

The sub-reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/PrizeForge/

The Hacker News comment that took me down the rabbithole: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45036360

Bonus thoughts:

• What's really crazy is that this is not a crypto or blockchain project. You can do a simplified version of the elastic fund matching with just money, pen & paper.
• This financing scheme is basically an idealized utopian voluntary tax system. I can imagine a granular delegate system being extremely effective at making politics incredibly boring. Imagine electing a local representative only to have potholes fixed in your area, using only the funds earmarked for fixing potholes. It would be so much simpler to keep them accountable. Either the roads are crap or they aren't! Where's the money, bub?! Why've you got a fancy new lawnmower?! I want my $2 back!
• If this reaches critical mass, it ends surveillance capitalism and digital feudalism. I don't want to live in Black Mirror, and this seems like the way out of that future.
• I would really love it if we can establish a funding stream for Tildes. I know I can donate to Tildes directly, but it would be a great test run to help PrizeForge get operational and build credibility. I only need one other crazy person. Isn't the internet great? (My credit card has not been stolen btw)
• The password login is still in development, so you have to login via Google SSO. I absolutely hate using Google SSO but I get it from a developer perspective. Proper auth is hard and companies like Tailscale took the same path and still don't support password login. (My google hasn't been hacked either fwiw)

IMPORTANT

We now have a splash screen. (Thanks @Boojum!)

ALSO IMPORTANT

Please read all directions for submitting a proper ballot.

Any improper ballots will NOT be counted, but you will get a polite message from me before the count asking you to fix them. XD

• All ballots must be top-level comments.
• All top-level comments should be ballots ONLY.

I will be using the Collapse Replies button to tally votes, so any ballots not in top-level comments will not be counted.

After you submit your ballot, you can respond to your own post in a new comment to lobby for your choices (which is optional but highly recommended). It's completely fine to have conversations downthread from the ballots, but please make sure that the top-level remains clean.

Submitting Your Ballot

• Each person has 20 votes to distribute among games they see fit.

• Each person can allocate a maximum of 5 points per Single Game/Arcade Special.

• Arcade Specials count as one block (do not vote for each game in them individually).

• Votes should be listed as NAME (VOTES) -- e.g. Pong (3)

• Voting closes 48 hours from the posting of this topic.

Please ensure your titles match mine exactly (copy/paste highly recommended). I will be using CTRL+F to tally votes u/Spore_Prince has written a program to tally the votes, so any different spellings will not being counted. See examples below, as well as my actual ballot in the topic.

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing (5)
Portal 3 (5)
Half-Life 3 (3)
Team Fortress 3 (2)
Night Trap (2)
Xexyz (1)
Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon (1)
Left 4 Dead 3 (1)

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing (10)
Protal 3 (7)
Wand of Gamelon (5)

Voting Outcomes

• The top 6 games/Arcade Specials will become the next 6 months of CGA.
• Of the remaining games, the bottom 50% will be cut from the list.
• The remaining 50% will stay on the list and will enter the next voting round starting at their current point totals instead of 0.
• The next round of nominations will happen in 6 months, and participants will be limited to nominating 1 new game OR 1 new Arcade Special.

Nominees

Arcade Specials

When I made my post about Chex Quest, it got me thinking about the classic Doom games released from 1993-1997, and I thought it would be great hearing some fellows Tilders thoughts about these classic games that can run on just about anything.

I thought of some questions, but please share anything Doom related! I think it's awesome seeing how this game has had such a lasting impact over the last 30+ years and how people continue to push this game in new and surprising ways.

• When did you first play/"get into" Doom?
• What is your favorite source port of Doom?
• What are your favorite WADs?
• What are your favorite total conversions of Doom/games built on the Doom Engine?
• What are your favorite mods for Doom?
• Do you still play Doom regularly?
• Have you introduced anyone who plays more modern shooters to Doom, and how did that go?

Introducing: Colossal Game Adventure

Colossal Game Adventure is Tildes' brand new retro video game club.

Each month we will play a different retro game/games, discuss our thoughts, and bask in the glorious digital experiences of yesteryear!

Colossal Game Adventure is a reference to Colossal Cave Adventure. It's one of the most influential games of all time, one of the first text-based interactive games, and one of the first games to be shared online.

What do we want to do with this group? Play influential games; interact with each other through text; and share the love for retro games online!

It also abbreviates to CGA (because we love chunky pixel art), and its name communicates the Colossal amount of fun and excitement that we have with retro video Games in our shared Adventure of playing them together.

Nominations

In this topic we will be gathering nominations for games to be played.

If you're looking for ideas:

• This Wikipedia list of "games considered the best" is a great place to start.
• RacketBoy has "hidden gem" lists for many retro systems.

Importantly, not all games for CGA have to be "significant" games. Zany, offbeat, and experimental games are welcome too. Anything you think might make for good discussions.

We will also have some "Arcade Special" months where we play several smaller/shorter games together in one batch (e.g. Pac-Man, Frogger, and Galaga). If you're not sure how big/long a game is, HowLongToBeat can help.

Single Game Nomination Rules

• Choose any game you feel is "retro" -- there is no hard and fast rule on what does or doesn't count
• Maximum of TWO game nominations per person
• Link to the game(s) on MobyGames

"Arcade Special" Nomination Rules

An "Arcade Special" is a batch of games that you feel could be played together in the same month.

(They do not have to be proper arcade games and can be from any system or genre.)

You might choose them because they're shorter or don't have as much staying power. You also might choose them based on a theme, series, or franchise. You also might do a completely random grab bag! There's no wrong way to make an Arcade Special (except for choosing games that are too big to fit in a month together).

• 2-5 games per Arcade Special
• Maximum of ONE Arcade Special nomination per person
• Link to the games on MobyGames

So, one person can nominate up to TWO single games and ONE arcade special (of up to five games).

Optional Extras

None of the following are required, but they make things more interesting:

• Explain why you're interested in nominating the games
• Explain why you think they'd be a good choice for the group
• If the game has multiple releases or multiple platforms, you can choose to specify which release/platform to target if you feel it's important. (Note: participants are still free to play whichever version they want.)
• For Arcade Specials: list why you think the games would be a good candidate to be played together.
• For Arcade Specials: give the batch its own cool name!

Next Steps

Nominations will be open for 48 hours from the time of this posting.

The voting topic will open on August 29.

Once the voting is over, we will post the schedule for the next six months and start our first official month on September 1st.

Notifications

If you want to be added to the notification list for our Colossal Game Adventure, simply comment in this topic. I will add all commenters here to the list unless they explicitly mention otherwise.

Sydney Sweeney has been the subject of a lot of controversies as of late. But what I want to focus on is how media outlets have been covering the release of her two new films, Americana and Eden.

Some background:

Americana is a genre film. It was shot and screened in 2023 to relatively positive reviews. The company that financed it, Bron, went bankrupt shortly after the film's screening. Due to this bankruptcy Lionsgate was able to acquire the rights to the film for cheap. While the film was made on a nine million dollar budget, Lionsgate purchased it for three million, with two million of that coming from international rights sales. Meaning that Lionsgate only spent one million acquiring the domestic distribution rights. In order to get more VOD sales and streaming deals, Lionsgate gave the film a small theatrical release with next to nothing in marketing.

Eden premiered at TIFF in 2024. Directed by Ron Howard the film also stars Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Ana De Armas, and Daniel Bruhl along with Sweeney. The film was financed at a net cost of 35 million dollars. It received mixed to negative reviews and only Netflix was willing to purchase it. Ron Howard opted to go with a smaller distributor, Vertical (who are mostly known for straight-to-video trash but have been slowly building themselves as a more legitimate art-house distributor), due to wanting a theatrical release which no one wanted to give the film. Vertical made a deal for less than 20 million dollars for the film.

Now, each distributor had their reasons for acquiring each film. Lionsgate saw a cheap film with a rising star which was well-received. It was an easy profit for them and helps build up their library as they are looking to be sold off. Vertical, having released last year's acclaimed The Order, is trying to build a filmmaker friendly reputation. Buying a non-commercial film with a high profile cast and a high profile director gives them more exposure and allows them to be more in the conversation for prestige filmmaking.

The film's financiers, however, are the money losers in both situations. Whether or not the distributors lost money doesn't really matter. Money losers are money losers and these films should be described as such.

And this is where it gets weird.

In the wake of Americana's opening we got two different articles about the film's box office. One from Deadline and one from IndieWire. Covering for the film, arguing that they weren't money losers for the reasons I myself just gave earlier. This weekend, as Eden just released, Deadline releases yet another article defending the film's performance.

This is too much coverage for these films that no one saw. Comparable films never get articles like this. So what's going on?

Here's my conspiracy theory. Sydney Sweeney is friends with Jeff Bezos. She attended his wedding and a few months ago there were heavily circulated rumors about her being the new Bond girl a franchise that Bezos unfortunately owns.

The media outlets that cover the entertainment industry: Variety, Deadline, Hollywood Reporter, and IndieWire are all owned by the same person: Jay Penske. Penske and Bezos run in the same circles, rich guy circles, and have attended philanthropic events at the same time. What I believe is happening is that Bezos is using his influence and connections for these outlets to write out positive headlines for Sweeney, due to her controversies, to create a more flattering image of her and her career.

It's odd, to say the least.

There was a lot of interest in a Retro Video Game Club. I'm thinking it would be cool to get it off the ground!

Use this topic as brainstorming/planning for how we think it should run.

1. We need a facilitator/emcee.

• Is anyone interested in stepping up and running this?

2. We need to figure out logistics.

• Schedule
• Game selection process
• Parameters on what counts as "retro" (if necessary)
• Maybe a name for the club?

3. Anything else?

• Is there anything else we need to consider?

I'm attempting to change my phone habits and swap out some unhealthy ones (doomscrolling the news) with healthy ones (solving puzzles instead!).

I just set up the incredible RetroArch on my phone now that you can do that on iOS, and I even got a little controller for games that need it (I tried playing Tetris with touch controls, and it was like, 95% good, but missing a spin or move when things were getting tense was frustrating and took me out of it).

What I'm looking for are puzzle game recommendations up through the PlayStation/N64 era (including handhelds) that can run on my phone.

In particular I want to explore more "novel" puzzle game ideas -- ones that kind of take their own swing at things. For example, Intelligent Qube on the PlayStation is one of my favorite games of all time, in part because I've never played anything like it in the nearly 30 years since its release.

That said, I'm also open to just regular old "pure" puzzler games. The first game I set up (and have been thoroughly enjoying) on RetroArch is Picross 3D on the DS. I love games like this that are just lists of puzzles and I can play one or two of them rather than, you know, doomscrolling.

Any recommendations you can give are appreciated!

I had an idea for a game some weeks ago, just as the title says. It would be something like Crusader Kings, it's all about dinasties and roleplay, but set in more modern eras, from the beginning of the industrial revolution until today, or maybe the future, we'll see. And instead of kingdoms, it's all about businesses. It's all about owning global company empires. Being a kind hearted local chain owner, or a sociopathic cutthroat in the 1% that owns the world. Up to you.

And this idea is still stuck with me, and I wanted to get back into game development, so I might as well just try it for fun and see what happens.

I picked Godot, 1) because it's open source, 2) it's going to be fun to see how much it developed in the last decade and 3) it's free, and especially 4) I don't want to use commercial engines and risk being affected by something similar to the runtime fee fiasco

I still have to finish some tutorials and make some simple games to get a grip on the engine and see how everything works, but as a data analyst I already have programming foundations and, I think, this project is monumental for someone like me, but I also think it's doable.

I have a very rough idea of how the code will work for the AI. It will incorporate "ticks" like CK, each tick being a day, and some events fire weekly or monthly, where based on the stats and traits, each individual character will calculate how likely they are to accept or reject that event. This event can be about buying shares, accepting proposal marriages, going on a trip, etc.

My main worry here is if GDScript is good enough to handle "intensive" algorithms. If not, I can always use C#, or C++ if I really have to, and adapt the problematic algorithms.

Another is what would be the best database manager for this, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

As for the world, initially I was thinking about being about the real one, but I realized that I may not want to deal with... Well, accuracies. For example, I don't want these businesses to exist in a vacuum, I'm going to try to make a system that interacts both the world's political events and these businesses. I want to create events, like, a country invades another, which creates demands for weapons, and if you own a weapon factory, good news for you! If you own businesses in the invaded country, well, sucks to be you.

So, I want to do those kind of events, but without needing to worry about things like "Portugal would never invade Japan. What is your AI thinking!?" or "Why is Greece an industrial power house?". If a big studio like Paradox has trouble fine tuning their hundreds of nations in their games, me by my alonesome certainly will not be able to do it.

So I'm thinking just making a fictional world, populated by several countries and empires but not as many as the real world. This way I can fine tune it to my liking and without worrying about being accurate with the real world. This is another challenge by itself, with its own cliffs, but it's more doable.

And so far, that's it. After I'm done with the learning phase, I'm going to start a proper planning phase, lay down some key mechanics and develop a prototype.

I wrote this post as a way to put my thoughts down, double check with myself if the idea is good.

But also, to check with the tildes community if you have any inputs. It can be anything: ideas, suggestions, warnings, problems that you know that I'll face, etc. I'll appreciate anything that you can give me